"Justice League" Drama Continues

In the off again, on again, off again yo-yo that has become the process of trying to make the film "Justice League of America," it appears that the pendulum has swung once again towards the negative.

The film is still on, only this time the director has left.

Dark Horizons reports that director George Miller in a morning talk show in Austrailia has officially stated he is off the picture. Something about the studio wanting bigger stars or something. Frankly I am so tired of hearing stories about this pathetic mess of a comic book adaptation that I just dont care anymore. If it gets made at all, it will not be with Miller at the helm.

When should a studio decide that enough is enough and pull the plug? How many problems need to arise before someone decides that its better to cut bait and run. Will this film ever see the light of day?

5 comments:

This is a very simple issue: Warner Bros./DC need to take a page out of the Marvel playbook and work toward crossing over their characters using the actors known for playing them.I.e., Christian Bale IS Batman as much as Robert Downy, Jr. IS Iron Man. You can't just throw another actor in those roles and expect people to just go along with it.Marvel understands this and is moving toward making The Avengers using the already established cast.What's DC doing? Rushing everything in an effort to keep up.I prefer DC characters to Marvel but given how things are going I'm thinking the Marvel films are going to wind being, overall, superior to their DC counterparts.The solution is so easy it's hard. Hire ACTUAL comic book writers (Jeph Loeb, Geoff Johns, Mark Millar) to help move these projects along. Forget hack directors like Miller and concentrate on those who actually have an understanding of the characters (Christopher Nolan, Jon Favreau, Louis Leterrier). Now, I don't think Nolan would be a good director something like Justice League, he's just an example of a good director who learned his source material and didn't toss it aside for the sake of his "vision."

Yeah, that's usually how it goes. Getting Hollywood (or comic publishers for that matter) to use "good" ideas is about like convincing the general public not to watch reality t.v. They know it's a good idea but it's like they just can't help themselves.I've actually got a Superman story that would probably work pretty well as a film but I have no connections in the industry so it'll probably just sit on my hard drive collecting cyberdust.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the "graphic novel" crowd, its hard for a studio to tell the difference between a spec script and "fan fiction" even though its the fans that know better than anyone how a story should work for a particular canon.

My advice would be to seek out some professional screenwriters that have made the jump to films and show them your script. Or at the very least ask their advice on what needs to be done.

Then, I would write at least three more scripts. The more experience you have under your belt, the better you will perfect your writing style. It also gives you good practice learning the stupid formatting rules that scripts are subjected to.

Most studios have some unpaid intern whose job is to sort through the thousands of scripts they receive. All he does is look at the script and see if it fits the formatting guidelines - which means are they using the right kind of brass brads, is the cover the right weight, etc. If you dont comply with all the nit-picking guidelines, the script is immediately discarded, no matter how good the story might have been.

But dont stop writing! If you enjoy it - if you feel like you could spend all day just writing, then that is the career you need to follow. Practice and dont give up.

And those rules are ridiculous. All that should matter is whether or not the story is actually good. Unfortunately all the execs. don't seem to care much for what's good vs. what's good for their wallets.It's all about butts in seats. Sadly, even bad movies make money these days. I mean, Four Christmases was #1 last week and Punisher: War Zone will probably make at least #2. It makes me sick.But yeah, I've been writing for a long time. My favorite is writing for comic to film adaptations. I've got three I'm working on right now including Superman, X-Men 4 and Aquaman.I know people think Aquaman is lame but I think he's just misunderstood. It would be cool to get some advice from an experienced screen writer and to find out what the standards are to get a story read by somebody. My fears are that when I submit something and it actually gets read they'll say something like "this is good, but we want somebody else to do a rewrite" and then they completely change everything. Kind of like what happened with the new Punisher.I did post some guideline ideas on my blog on how to make a Superman movie both good and relevant. Check it out and let me know what you think.